2ads. No40., OcT.4. '56.] 



NOTES ANt> QUEHlieS. 



263 



them which you can get in June or July, cut off 

 their heads, take off their skins, and unbowel 

 them;" and then, having played a variety of 

 other antics with them, you have a medicine of 

 " extraordinary virtue." " It cures the falling- 

 sickness, strengthens the brain, sight, and hear- 

 ing, and preserveth from gray hairs, reneweth 

 youth, cureth gout and consumption, and is very 

 good in and against pestilential infections." In 

 anotlier place we are assured that oil of snakes 

 and adders, which we are taught to make in the 

 clearest possible way, performs wonderful cures in 

 recovering hearing in those that be deaf. " It's 

 reported," remarks his lordship, " that some have 

 been cured that were born deaf by using this oil." 

 There are a good many plague recipes. One 

 will bear extracting, and shall close our paper : 



" Take a live frog, and lay the belly of it next the 

 plague sore ; if the patient will escape, the frog will burst 

 in a quarter of an hour : then lay on another ; and this 

 you shall do till more do burst, for they draw forth the 

 venom. If none of the frogs do burst, the party will 

 not escape. This hath been frequently tried. Some say 

 a dried toad will do it better." 



I fear many of your readers will not thank me 

 for encroaching on your pages at such length, and 

 with matter so trite. John Bbuce. 



5. Upper Gloster Street. 



MB. MOBQAN 8 " NORTH WALES AND TELFORD. 



Mr. Morgan, in Part I. of his work, now in 

 course of publication, while dwelling on the many 

 sources of attraction and interest presented by 

 the Northern Principality, observes that, " of the 

 most remarkable achievements of modern scien- 

 tific labour, four are situated in North Wales, 

 within a few hours' visit of each other : the Slate 

 Quarries of Penrhyn, the New Harbour of Re- 

 fuge at Holyhead, the Suspension and Tubular 

 Bridges on the Menai." (Introduction, p. iv.) In 

 strictness no exception can, perhaps, be taken to 

 this statement ; but does it not exclude works of 

 science of the highest interest, in omitting to enu- 

 merate the Aqueducts of Pontycyssylltau and 

 Chirk spanning the historic vales of Llangollen 

 and Ceiriog*, which their great engineer, Telford, 



• " Aye, many a day, 



David replied, together have we led 

 The onset — Dost thou not remember, Brother, 

 How jn that hot and unexpected charge, 

 On Keii-iog's bank, we gave the enemy 

 Their welcoming — 



And Berwyns' after strife ? " 



Southey's Madoc. 



" 1165. The king gathered another armie of chosen 



men, through all his dominions, England, Normandy, 



Anjow, Gascoine, Guyen, sending for succours from 



Flanders and Brytain, and then returned towards North 



in just pride caused to be engraved as his chefs- 

 cCoRuvre on his seal?* It may be that the last con- 

 tribution of Telford's genius, his last offering to the 

 engineering glory of his country, his Menai JBridge, 

 as also the Tubular Bridge of Robert Stephenson, 

 are more imposing in structure and object ; but 

 in architectural grace and proportions, in the 

 charm produced by combined airy lightness and 

 strength, they certainly do not surpass their elder 

 sisters of Denbighshire, the rivals of the famed 

 Pons Trajani of Alcantara. It may be doubted 

 also whether the latter do not offer as high 

 claims to engineering skill, having regard to 

 the less advanced science of the period of their 

 construction. Would not Robert Stephenson, — 

 himself, the most just and generous of men, — be 

 the first to acknowledge the claims of his great 

 predecessor in the spirit which inspired the noble 

 avowal of Newton to his rival Hooke : " If I have 



Wales, minding utterlie to destroy all that had life in 

 the land : and coming to Croes Oswalt, called Oswald's 

 Tree, encamped there. On the contrarie side, Prince 

 Owen, with his brother Cadwallader, with all the power 

 of North Wales; the Lord Rees, with all the power 

 of South Wales ; Owen Cyveilioc [Prince of Powys- 

 Wenwynwyn,] and the sonnes of Madoc ap Meredith 

 [last sovereign of Powys, viz. Griffith Maelor, Lord of 

 Bromfield, ancestor of Owen Glyndwr, and the chivalrous 

 Owen Brogyntyn, Lord of Edeirnion, progenitor of the 

 Hugheses of Gwerclas, Barons of Kymmer-yn-Edeirnion], 

 with the power of Powyss ; and the people betwixt Wye 

 and Seavern gathered themselves together, and came to 

 Corwen in Edeyrnion, proposing to defend their country. 

 But the king, understanding that they were nigh, being 

 wonderfull desirous of battell, came to the river Ceirioc, and 

 caused the woods to be hewn down. Whereupon a number 

 of the Welshmen, understanding the passage, unknown 

 to their captains, met with the king's ward, where were 

 placed the picked men of all the armie, and then began a 

 bote skirmish, where diverse worthie men were slaine on 

 either side; but in the end the king wanne the pas- 

 sage, and came to the Mountain of Berwyn [Edeirnion], 

 where he laid in camp certaine daj-s, and so both armies 

 stood in awe of each other : for the king kept the open 

 plains, and was afraid to be intrapped in straits ; but the 

 Welshmen watched for the advantage of the place, and 

 kept the king so straitle that neither forage nor victual 

 might come to his camp, neither durst any soldiery stir 

 abroad. And to augment their miseries there fell such 

 raine that the king's men could scant stand upon their 

 feet upon those slippery hills. In the end the king was 

 compelled to return home without his purpose, and that 

 with great loss of men and munition, besides his charges. 

 Therefore, in a great choler, he caused the pledges eies, 

 whom he had received long before that, to be put out ; 

 which were Rees and Cadwalhon, the sonnes of Owen; 

 and Cynwric and Meredith, the sonnes of Rees, and 

 other." — Powell's History of Wales. 



* " Telford, who o'er the Vale of Cambrian Dee, 

 Aloft in air, at giddy height upborne, 

 Carried his navigable road, and hung 

 High o'er Menai's Straits the bending bridge ; ■ 

 Structures of more ambitious enterprise 

 Than minstrels in the age of old romance 

 To their own Merlin's magic lore ascribed." 



SOUTHEY. 



